#african opportunities

[weldnas]

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[silentreigns]

I want to hear a perspective from someone who is heavily involved in the African fashion industry about what Lewis doing. Some of y'all are in the mindset that you cannot criticize someone you support (you have gotta grow out of that) and it's not really giving me what I need to see.

[blackprivilege]

Very nice that a bunch of the Soul Eater characters are white because that means it’s a free range to make them Black instead 🤭

[jacentric]

.

[nerozane]

Maybe because I was spoilt by other character creator games, but it really does suck having facial options for your Tav be white, white, pretty white, hot white, black, Asian. Maybe lucky having a second vague Asian face.

And some of the smaller species don't have black or Asian faces which. feels bad. I wanted to make my eldritch knight fight, who is a Vietnamese half orc, but they are masculine body type but there's no Asian face for half-orcs.

Even for the male gnomes and dwarves have only white faces for those species and I'm >:/ and it sucks because Larian can make extensive facial options (dragonborn has so many I adore them), but for the others there's not any.

Paired with the fact that most of the origin cast + sidekicks and NPCs that visit your camp or play a huge part in each origin char is white. The only very significant bipoc characters to any arc is Wyll (black), Duke Ravengard(black), Thaniel(he's Asian tho you can interpret him as being white)... and Cazador(Asian). Which the latter is yikes since he's an abuser (and alluded rapist).

[sparrownnax]

swear to god i'm on the verge of some kind of mental break

[xtruss]

What Happened When a Fearless Group of Mississippi Sharecroppers Founded Their Own City

Strike City was born after one small community left the plantation to live on their own terms

— September 11, 2023 | NOVA—BPS

A tin sign demarcated the boundary of Strike City just outside Leland, Mississippi. Photo by Charlie Steiner

In 1965 in the Mississippi Delta, things were not all that different than they had been 100 years earlier. Cotton was still King—and somebody needed to pick it. After the abolition of slavery, much of the labor for the region’s cotton economy was provided by Black sharecroppers, who were not technically enslaved, but operated in much the same way: working the fields of white plantation owners for essentially no profit. To make matters worse, by 1965, mechanized agriculture began to push sharecroppers out of what little employment they had. Many in the Delta had reached their breaking point.

In April of that year, following months of organizing, 45 local farm workers founded the Mississippi Freedom Labor Union. The MFLU’s platform included demands for a minimum wage, eight-hour workdays, medical coverage and an end to plantation work for children under the age of 16, whose educations were severely compromised by the sharecropping system. Within weeks of its founding, strikes under the MFLU banner began to spread across the Delta.

Five miles outside the small town of Leland, Mississippi, a group of Black Tenant Farmers led by John Henry Sylvester voted to go on strike. Sylvester, a tractor driver and mechanic at the A.L. Andrews Plantation, wanted fair treatment and prospects for a better future for his family. “I don’t want my children to grow up dumb like I did,” he told a reporter, with characteristic humility. In fact it was Sylvester’s organizational prowess and vision that gave the strikers direction and resolve. They would need both. The Andrews workers were immediately evicted from their homes. Undeterred, they moved their families to a local building owned by a Baptist Educational Association, but were eventually evicted there as well.

After two months of striking, and now facing homelessness for a second time, the strikers made a bold move. With just 13 donated tents, the strikers bought five acres of land from a local Black Farmer and decided that they would remain there, on strike, for as long as it took. Strike City was born. Frank Smith was a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee worker when he went to live with the strikers just outside Leland. “They wanted to stay within eyesight of the plantation,” said Smith, now Executive Director of the African American Civil War Memorial and Museum in Washington, D.C. “They were not scared.”

Life in Strike City was difficult. Not only did the strikers have to deal with one of Missississippi’s coldest winters in history, they also had to endure the periodic gunshots fired by white agitators over their tents at night. Yet the strikers were determined. “We ain’t going out of the state of Mississippi. We gonna stay right here, fighting for what is ours,” one of them told a documentary film team, who captured the strikers’ daily experience in a short film called “Strike City.” “We decided we wouldn’t run,” another assented. “If we run now, we always will be running.”

But the strikers knew that if their city was going to survive, they would need more resources. In an effort to secure federal grants from the federal government’s Office of Economic Opportunity, the strikers, led by Sylvester and Smith, journeyed all the way to Washington D.C. “We’re here because Washington seems to run on a different schedule,” Smith told congressmen, stressing the urgency of the situation and the group’s needs for funds. “We have to get started right away. When you live in a tent and people shoot at you at night and your kids can’t take a bath and your wife has no privacy, a month can be a long time, even a day…Kids can’t grow up in Strike City and have any kind of a chance.” In a symbolic demonstration of their plight, the strikers set up a row of tents across the street from the White House.

John Henry Sylvester, left, stands outside one of the tents strikers erected in Washington, D.C. in April 1966. Photo by Rowland Sherman

“It was a good, dramatic, in-your-face presentation,” Smith told American Experience, nearly 60 years after the strikers camped out. “It didn’t do much to shake anything out of the Congress of the United States or the President and his Cabinet. But it gave us a feeling that we’d done something to help ourselves.” The protestors returned home empty-handed. Nevertheless, the residents of Strike City had secured enough funds from a Chicago-based organization to begin the construction of permanent brick homes; and to provide local Black children with a literacy program, which was held in a wood-and-cinder-block community center they erected.

The long-term sustainability of Strike City, however, depended on the creation of a self-sufficient economy. Early on, Strike City residents had earned money by handcrafting nativity scenes, but this proved inadequate. Soon, Strike City residents were planning on constructing a brick factory that would provide employment and building material for the settlement’s expansion. But the $25,000 price tag of the project proved to be too much, and with no employment, many strikers began to drift away. Strike City never recovered.

Still, its direct impact was apparent when, in 1965, Mississippi schools reluctantly complied with the 1964 Civil Rights Act by offering a freedom-of-choice period in which children were purportedly allowed to register at any school of their choice. In reality, however, most Black parents were too afraid to send their children to all-white schools—except for the parents living at Strike City who had already radically declared their independence . Once Leland’s public schools were legally open to them, Strike City kids were the first ones to register. Their parents’ determination to give them a better life had already begun to pay dividends.

Smith recalled driving Strike City’s children to their first day of school in the fall of 1970. “I remember when I dropped them off, they jumped out and ran in, and I said, ‘They don't have a clue what they were getting themselves into.’ But you know kids are innocent and they’re always braver than we think they are. And they went in there like it was their schoolhouse. Like they belonged there like everybody else.”

[amormusicamuerte]

What I love about science is that disagreements are not problems. They are opportunities for everyone to learn something

Derek Muller, YouTuber, creator of "Veritasium"

[realjaysumlin]

Money is the easiest thing in the world to make. My dad told me one day "If a person can become rich selling shit, a person can get rich selling anything, just never sell yourself." My dad had a third grader education but was one of the smartest people I have ever known.

You can start a business with no money, just doing graphic designs or becoming an affialte for large retailers, especially if I live in Africa, India and China along with a few other countries, people are doing this already and they are living well and not begging anyone for financial support.

I will use Ghana as an example because this is my home outside of America. No one living in America or Europe can compete with Ghana labor pricing just because Ghana's cost of living is low compared to these two countries.

I can do a logo design in less than two minutes without needing any experience in the old days of Adobe Design. Now with artificial intelligence there are no barriers in languages, design skills, gramma, punctuation, script writing or any other limitations that make graphic design business a major obstacle to overcome.

In the United States a logo design can run you from $150-$800. If I lived in Ghana I could charge half of the cost and live well. To learn more message me anytime, I will be happy to do a Zoom call with you. Thanks Jay.

[wilhelmina-murray-harker]

finally started working on my golden record story again (to hopefully finish it and publish it in my school’s literary magazine thing) and the planet I picked to have my aliens be from got a name which is cool but also means now I have to go back and edit things to take the name and mythology of that culture into account instead of what I had before

[papirouge]

some of yall need to calm down with calling "socialism" "leftism" or "wokism" ANYTHING that your remotely dislike

[blackcreativestars]

Fatherland – Black Creative Stars Accelerator

The Black Creative Stars is aimed at empowering young black people with the opportunity to Learn, Create, Distribute and Monetize afrocentric contents across the global digital entertainment landscape. We are committed to connecting young people passionate about the arts with mentorship and tools in understanding creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.

[chaunaleatricia]

Are you looking for a publishing job?

Are you looking for a publishing job?

==== Are you looking for a publishing job? Have you got a degree in journalism, media, or publishing? Perhaps you are someone who loves to read and are looking for a job in the publishing industry. Regardless of your background, finding a publishing job can be a daunting task, but here is a guide to help you get started. 1. Get your resume ready: Before you start applying for any jobs in…

[darlingkeyzblog]

Support Systems and Opportunities for Growth for Women Entrepreneurs in the Central African Republic

Women entrepreneurs in the Central African Republic (CAR) face numerous challenges in establishing and growing their businesses, including limited access to finance, cultural barriers, and infrastructural deficiencies. However, various support systems and emerging opportunities are helping them navigate these challenges and promote their growth. This article explores the key support systems…

[asanee44]

Premier Music Promo Services on the African Spirit Podcast 

Since I started promoting Afro Music 22 tracks on the African Spirit Podcast, I’ve received numerous inquiries from artists about adding their tunes to our promo spots. So, I decided to open these services to additional music artists, brands, sponsors, etc. As such, I’m introducing our new exclusive music promotion packages designed to help aspiring African and Caribbean musicians elevate their…

[africanamericanreports]

Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday unveiled her Oppurtunity Agenda for Black men on Monday. Learn more about her agenda.